Keeper of Sorrows, page 19
What had she expected? Just because she’d helped Mila, that the woman would feel indebted to her, putting herself in harm’s way? She got it. Still, it irritated her. More so, she had to leave her behind. What if she went missing?
“Is your hall door locked?”
“Of course,” Mila said, voice muffled in her pillow. “Try not to get yourself killed, eh?”
Naokah locked the door behind her. “You too,” she muttered to herself.
She waited until the voices faded, the hallways stilled; only the hum of the hive walls kept her company as she slipped out. But as she padded to the savvy’s alcove, the cadence of drums, the pluck of violin strings, stopped her. Music from the Keeper’s wing. Her part of the citadel was off-limits, but Naokah was breaking the rules anyway. Besides, the savvy’s nook was dark, silent.
She twisted around, opting to take the Hall of Keepers. The moon was a scythe in the sky, and it seeped through the stained glass, smearing the frames in the black purple of pooled blood. The sound picked up, the beating of the drum faster, more chaotic. Her pulse matched, and she sped up, reaching the Keeper’s wing in no time. Naokah’s breath clouded the air. She should’ve brought her robe. As she passed the library, the glass above the books cast the shelves in jewel tones, and the nostalgic scent of dust and old pages cloaked her.
When Tati left and Matri lost her wits, Lenita had taken over running the household. Naokah helped. After a long day of weeding and picking cloudcane beneath the sun’s glare, the two would have their work cut out for them inside. While the girls were cooking and cleaning, Patri would read from Foklor de Croi Croga. Some of the tales were inspiring, of children half Naokah’s age setting off on adventures around the world, and some were dark and chilling, foretelling prophecies. Whenever she heard the crinkle of pages, Patri clearing his throat, she worked just a little faster, so she could sit by the living room pit, where smoking ice plumed, and listen to him read – the best part of her day. The farm sustained her, her family, but she worked out of necessity, not passion. Even prepping to win the bid over Lenita hadn’t fulfilled her. Something had always been missing, was still missing.
The beating drum pulled Naokah back to the citadel. Now, she peered through stained-glass arches. A woman with a long train moved about the library. The glint of a ruby videira, and Naokah’s chest fluttered. The Keeper. A cloud of tiny shadows buzzed around her. She couldn’t ascertain where the music was coming from, as there were no musicians, but more shadows peeled off the walls, moving in perfect time to the drums’ cadence. The Keeper danced with bees. She shouldn’t have been spying, interrupting some intimate moment with the Keeper and her colonies, yet she couldn’t turn away. The music ebbed and flowed, hypnotizing her.
A bright light sparked inside the library, and Naokah pulled back, but still didn’t turn. The Keeper had a torch, the flames burning white-blue, lighting up her youthful face. Naokah blinked, straining her eyes. How could this woman be in her forties? She didn’t look a day over thirty. Which had Naokah even more concerned. She wasn’t ill nor old, both reasons for a Keeper to pass on her position. So, why was she stepping down? It made no sense. Not when all this power stemmed from her.
And the bees.
She’d always viewed the bees from afar, respect lined with fear. A necessary evil to continue crop production. But here, as they spiraled around the Keeper, wings iridescent beneath the torchlight, they looked like fairies. The way the Keeper eyed them was how Naokah had eyed Lenita. Pure, unconditional love. What could be so terrible that she’d abandon her post decades before her time?
Bony hands fell on Naokah’s shoulders. She spun around and gasped.
Dark eyes, wide with terror, stared back. “What are you doing all the way down here?” Mila seized her arm, pulling her back to the Hall of Keepers.
“Could ask you the same question,” Naokah rasped, flicking the woman’s cold fingers from her skin. “I told you I was going to search for clues. What are you doing here?”
Mila wrapped her arms around herself. “Some…thing is in our suite.”
Naokah’s stomach pitched. “Not someone?”
“Do you know anyone with eyes that glow yellow?” Mila whispered, stopping in the middle of the hall. The sliver of moonlight fell over her face, and not for the first time did she remind Naokah of the ghost girl. “What do we do?”
Had she accidentally left the veranda door open? What beasts lurked about the isle at night? “Find Captain Avice.”
“But we aren’t supposed to be outside our rooms.”
“A beast in our chambers negates that, don’t you think? Come on, the captain will know what to do.” She hoped.
But Mila didn’t follow. She stood in the shadows, rocking back and forth.
“Unless you’d rather go back and have tea with that creature, I’d suggest you follow.” Naokah stopped, then swiveled around. “And quickly. Likely, that thing, whatever it is, knows you’ve left. It could be following us already.”
That made her move. That, and a bright, blinding flash, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the citadel. The frames trembled and dust motes floated through the air. Another flash, and the shadow of a horned beast lurked over the murals. It growled, fangs dripping, and twisted its head to the side with a wet thunk, as if it had snapped its own neck. But then it leapt forward.
Naokah grabbed Mila’s hand and screamed, “Run!”
Chapter Thirty-One
Not a Blur
She saved me, and I didn’t even know her name. Nor what the foul creature that tried to strangle me was. Nor how she, by simply yelling at it, scared it away. But those huge, doll-like eyes? I could never forget them. I’d pulled her from the Razing. Had I merely been doing my civic duty or was she something more? Did I have a daughter? I tingled with warmth at the prospect of family, someone to love who’d love me back, but dashed it away just as quick. Now was the time for action. Hope would have to wait.
Above and below, the army never ceased. No matter where I looked, they remained invisible but for their heavy boots on my chest. Grasping for anything that could distract me, be it bad or worse, I searched the shadowy halls for the girl and the beast, fretting over what I’d do if I didn’t find them in that order. She’d been able to hold it off for now, but what if it attacked, and she didn’t appear? It wanted something, something it thought I had. My gut told me she had the answer. Was it looking for the scrim, or was it the scrim, transformed like me? Whatever it was looking for, I couldn’t allow it to find it.
It was midnight, the moon a thumbnail in the turrets. With the scrim attack looming, I had a brief window to find the two antipodes, light and dark, before the fray. My actions had paved a path for the scrim to enter the citadel, and if they turned into similar fiends, I’d have more to handle than just shifty envoys. The Keeper’s life was in danger. Avice, resentment towards her aside, was a good sentry, an unremitting shadow of the bee guardian, but even she was no match for the beast. If there was any chance of retrieving my identity, the Keeper had to survive. Illogical as it was, my fondness for her had only grown. Maybe one day we could be friends.
Chants and yells rang from the fitness arena. I swam through murals, past the library, great hall, and conservatory to an oblong room that uncoiled into the hedge maze like a serpent’s tail. Banners of flowers depicting sigils of Vindstöld’s seven nations unfurled from the top of the arena’s skylights down to the glossy floor, now covered in tumbling mats. Abelha’s banner was easy to pick out: yellow dahlias were groomed together, creating a queen bee wreathed by her workers. The rest of the panel was filled with dahlias so burgundy they neared black. Banners with symbols of cloudcane, birds, grapes, and cattle snagged me, and I tried to dive deeper into my endless well of memories, but a bellow from the arena diverted me.
Samara had the envoys conducting combatives. As usual, Lenita stood out. She was smaller than the rest, a good foot shorter, but toppled one after another, throwing them over her shoulder. Samara nodded, grinning with each envoy she bested. They favored her. Crogans had endurance, working on cloudcane farms day in, day out. If the Keeper were to walk in right now, she’d have told the others to concede. I would have too. More impressive, Lenita wasn’t smug when she won. She fought like a dancer, limbs feathering out, full of grace.
Not that the future Keeper needed to train for combat. They’d spend more time coaxing bees than punching enemies. This segment of the Praxis was symbolic. There were often multiple queen bees born at the same time. They had to fight to the death to ensure their code passed to the next generation. A little primitive, but had I not spent my existence killing creatures I knew nothing about? Hivemind was real, compelling, and I’d often wondered whether it was the eldest or the Keeper who controlled me? Why did I know so much about the citadel and the bees? Had I been a staff member here, or did my knowledge of Abelha offset my past because I, a gargoyle, was part of the citadel? With the end near, the marching in my chest, should the citadel fall, I’d go with her.
I homed in on the envoys, their set jaws and sweaty skin, the crinkle of their linens as they grappled, searching for anything out of the ordinary, anything inhuman. Lenita fought the envoy from Raptoria. I’d unwittingly squirmed behind his sigil, a hydrangea bird, wings outstretched into a sunset, but shifted, taking cover in the wine banner of Vintera instead. I’d yet to shake off those shrewd eyes, that cackling. Had I encountered Enzo after I loosed the scrim, I would’ve sworn he was possessed. Tall and lean, he moved like a praying mantis. But Lenita was faster and bladed a leg beneath him. He tripped. She reached down to help him. He punched her in the throat instead. She coughed, collapsing to her knees. The other envoys, having fallen to her, cheered him on. Samara’s arms were tight over their chest.
“Keep it clean,” Samara told Enzo when, while Lenita wheezed, face purple, he thrust her down. The urge to return the favor itched my heel. As he threw an arm around Lenita’s neck, pulling her onto her back, a memory throttled me with the same force.
I was on a ship. It seized to a halt; the gulls behind the sails flew away, abandoning me. Us. The whole crew. I cursed, furious my costly investment had vanished. I’d ventured up to the Weeping Sea, the wedge of glassy water separating Vintera and Raptoria. I didn’t remember what I was doing here, perhaps picking up goods from the north, but this particular sea, despite its teal color, was sinister. I was confused, wary, and, even more frightening – lost. Soupy fog encapsulated my ship. I couldn’t see a foot in front of me. With no wind, no flock, I was stuck here. Where was my lover with the obscure face? Something splashed the hull, then the bow. The fog darkened. A cacophony of screeches. A flock, a massacre. Mine?
“Tyrant!” a woman yelled.
Something hard whacked my head, pain stabbed behind my eyes, and I face-planted into the deck. Darkness gushed over me.
Screaming jerked me back to the fitness arena. Lenita had one black eye, the other swollen shut, but that hadn’t stopped her. She’d pinned Enzo, punching his face bloody. The envoys huddled around, crying for her to get off. His nose made a wet, crunching sound, and he bellowed. Samara tried to pull Lenita off, but she fought with such strength. Blow after blow, she moved so quickly, she was a blur.
No, not a blur.
As she lifted her right arm, something beyond her linens, a veil, flapped outside her skin like wings. More sheer fluttered over her legs, her back. And when Samara pulled her off Enzo, the presence in Lenita fizzled, evaporating like mist in the sun. Before it disappeared, it twisted my way. Shadows oozed from her sockets. The ghost girl. No wonder I couldn’t find her. She’d been inside Lenita. She pummeled that envoy for what, taking a cheap shot? Now I wasn’t so keen on seeking her. If she could possess vessels, forcing them to do terrible things, was she any better than the viper-eyed beast or me?
What if she was worse?
* * *
After the tussle, I followed the girl to the gardens. She pranced atop the hedge wall, floating faster than I could stride. No clouds in sight, the sun perched high in the powdery blue sky, and the air effervesced with honeysuckle. A disgrace. The weather was flippant as she was. With doom’s legions so near, the horizon should’ve been devastated, trembling, weeping. Not throwing on a sparkly gown, spritzing on cheap perfume, and pretending we were attending the ball of the century.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, averting my gaze. The girl’s dark sockets sucked the heat from my marrow.
“He deserved it,” she finally answered with a shrug.
“For a tactless jab? Lenita can hold her own.”
“For now, yes.” The girl blew at a butterfly that promptly fluttered away. “But darkness falls this night.”
“It falls every night.” Her cryptic answers irritated me.
“The envoys will come for her. For revenge. She won’t be able to stop them.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “Could be jealousy, greed, corruption. I don’t know why, just when.”
“And you can’t help her?”
“It’s your turn.”
“Mine?” I’d devoted my time to taking the envoys down, and now she wanted me to help?
“You ask too many questions.”
“Sorry,” I said. Her cold stare stole my breath. “What will happen to her?”
“Nothing, if you save her.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
She plucked a white blossom and sat. Her small body glowed from within like a cloud crowning the sun. “Because she’s important to someone you care about.”
“You know who I am?”
She tittered. “I do.”
Divine Daughter! Finally. “Who?” I pressed.
She laughed, mirthless, and I growled. I could’ve pried more from the eldest gargoyle.
Are you mine? I wanted to ask, but I was afraid. If she was my daughter, was it not my fault she had this brutal side? “At least tell me where you came from?”
“Don’t you remember?” She blew on the honeysuckle blossom, and pollen danced between us. “I came here with you.”
I sneezed, and she vanished. So razing close. I was tied to the ghost girl and the envoy I’d planned on eliminating. No wonder I felt attached to Lenita. But now what? The ghost disappeared before I could ask about the beast. Flustered, I rushed back inside—
The foliage sucked me in. I fought, flicking the waxy leaves, but the sun’s warm hands intervened, tugging down my eyelids. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept, probably before I loosed the scrim, but there wasn’t time.
Deep within the maze of my nightmares, a swarm of bees and the viper-eyed beast chased me. Sweat poured down my back, my legs. I slipped. Fell into the mouth of a mural. The mural gaped, then collapsed. The floor split between my feet. I jumped to one side, hitting the ground with a painful thunk. Smoke billowed from the expanding trench. Pressure yanked my arms, pulling me into the Razing. My lover with the hazy face hung from one hand, the girl who may’ve been my daughter, the other. Both pleaded with me to save them, but my joints popped, fingers slipping. I’d have to choose.
I can’t, I sobbed. Please don’t make me.
The girl with big round eyes nodded the saddest nod I’d ever seen, then released.
I shot up, drenched in sweat. The sun had sunk below the mountains, spilling orange, purple, and pink across the horizon. But I felt no peace. Had I killed my own daughter? I rubbed my aching skull. I was acquiring all the weaknesses of humans without any of the benefits.
A shadow swooped overhead. A small green bird flew above the dome. The warded mesh glimmered beneath its shadow, its nosediving shadow.
I waved frantically. “Stop—”
The bird exploded, a ball of feathers and flames.
Didn’t they have mates? Couldn’t they have warned each other this isle was merciless? I shook my head. A needless death. A feather no bigger than my thumb tickled my chest. Tipped in emerald, its violet center speckled gold. I traced the soft fibers. The girl had worn a similar one the night she saved me. I had to find her.
But first, Lenita.
I swam back inside. The shadows slipped over me like a heavy cloak. I’d started out wanting to get rid of Lenita, of all of them. They threatened the Keeper’s tenure. But now the Crogan could be the key to my existence.
I slipped by the great hall and, though the food had been served, steak and potatoes sat on porcelain platters, and goblets of wine spanned damask tablecloths, no one was there, save the staff. The chef was in a heated argument with his lover. Probably over the food sitting out, getting cold. Every second I didn’t find Lenita was a second closer to her death. Panic thinned my blood, and I swam through the halls, then stopped.
Distant voices. I slammed open the door leading to the distillery outside. Hollow screams burbled up from the grotto.
I flew beneath the lattice of vines, over the cliff. If I had skin, I’d have burned it off, so fast did I slide down the rope ladder. Navy shadows lapped over me. Treacly murmurs of honey and cloves and berries thickened to jam on my tongue. I gasped for air, chasing the voices. As I ran down the catwalk, metal clinking beneath my claws, I found them.
A huddle of linens and pastel silks, screams and sobs. Enzo, with a bandaged face, had Lenita by the back of the collar and another Poler held down her shoulders, submerging her head in a cooling melgo tank. She flailed about, amber liquid frothing. One of the other envoys, the scrawny one, was the sobbing I’d heard. He yelled and begged, tearing at the others to let Lenita go, but they pushed him away, threatening to drown him if he didn’t shut up.
Lenita’s body slackened; the bubbles grew smaller. Her arms no longer moved. Something within me snapped, and everything went red. I sprang forward, claws and fangs out.
